"Never lose and opportunity for seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting." Emerson

I sat down to write a letter to an old friend last week. She had written me after losing her husband last spring, and I had procrastinated about writing her back. Now I had her e-mail address, but it's just not the same, is it? I had thought out in my mind what I wanted to say, but I just kept putting off the actual writing. When I finally did it, I was appalled at my handwriting. It's not that I ever had beautiful writing, but what use to at least be legible had turned into a mess.
The Boy and Little One struggle with this problem too. The Boy's handwriting has improved considerably over the last few years, moving from almost un-decipherable to actually kind of nice. His letters are sometimes hard to differentiate, but altogether, it looks neat. Little One has lovely handwriting when she sets her mind to it, but that impatient gene that she inherited from The Husband keeps her from setting her mind to it very often.

Now my mother-in-law had beautiful handwriting, the kind that you look at and then try to copy. But she also had a talent for analyzing handwriting...not in a "I took a class and now I can do this" kind of way...but in a "I studied for years and I can tell what kind of person you are" way. I was unfortunately introduced to this talent in a rather disconcerting way...

As I have previously stated, I met The Husband at work. We had been out on a couple of dates, when one morning he approached me at my desk with a funny look on his face. "Let me ask you something", he began. "Are you depressed? Stuck in the past? Do you have low goals?"........Well gee, good morning to you too, I thought. At the time, I was bewildered that he would ask me these questions out of the blue. Our dates had all been upbeat and fun (ok, well except for my stalker boss who threatened to fire me if I went out with The Husband...but that is a story for a whole different blog).....so I could not imagine why he would ask me those questions. But anyway, I did give it some thought. Was I depressed? No. Not my personality....although having a new "boyfriend" asking me that question didn't help.....Next, was I stuck in the past? No, although being a single mom struggling to find a balance between my kids, my work and this new guy probably did have me wishing for easier days....and finally....Did I have low goals?....Good grief, what kind of question was that? I was sort of offended...although later on I would look back and remember that I had been forced to give up working on my master's degree, yet hold on to the modeling jobs that I hated due to time and financial priority. Because of that, I might have actually gone through a brief period of "low goals"...but again....not something you want a new man in your life to be pointing out after only a few dates.

I can't remember what my reaction was to The Husband. I think I laughed it off and shooed him back upstairs...and it wasn't until after we were married that he divulged to me that he had actually sent his mom something I had written so that she could analyse me!! All I can say is that it is a good thing I did not know this at the time...because this blog would be minus "The Husband"......and suffice it to say that I never wrote anything to the mother-in-law by hand again....even Christmas cards were typed....

But it was amazing what information she could obtain from this...and I will admit that I did consult with her a few times before I hired people because she was so dead-on in her analysis. Big Sister and The Senior and their friends would all sneak handwriting samples from their boyfriends, and then, when mother-in-law visited, they would race to the house and sit around the table, and she would tell them whether or not the guy was a "keeper". (If she had met the guy and didn't like him....you can bet the handwriting always indicated "dishonesty and unkindness").

A few weeks ago, The Husband told a totally inappropriate story at dinner with friends. It had to do with old girlfriends... and what his mom had deciphered from their handwriting. Let's just say that it was not dinner table material....and let's also say that it was not a normal mom/son conversation. But that was the great thing about the mother-in-law.....she was at her best when she was un-edited. And that is definitely a trait she passed on to The Husband...

So until tomorrow, when I am promising myself to work on my handwriting, because you never know what conclusions people may be drawing from what you write....